2.9 Representation and the Spirit of Democracy with Sofia Näsström

In today’s episode, I’m talking to Associate Professor Sofia Näsström from the Department of Government, at the Uppsala University in Sweden. Sofia works in the field of political theory, with a particular focus on issues related to democracy, constituent power, the people, the right to have rights, representation, freedom and precarity. She is currently working on a monograph entitled The Spirit of Democracy: Thinking Democracy beyond the Nation-State.

Sofia is a democratic theorist and I talk with her about who is being represented in representative democracies, the difference between democratic and non-democratic representation and her work identifying the spirit of democracy.

Sofia will also be part of a later episode considering the relationship between democracy and capitalism. In next week’s episode, I will be move from considering theory by taking an ‘empirical turn’ with Professor John Keane talking his work on monitory democracy. I hope you’ll join me then.